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Budapest Open Access Initiative: BOAI Forum Archive [BOAI] [Forum Home] [index] [options] [help]boaiforum messages[BOAI] A proposal for evaluating and rewarding the impact of research articlesFrom: Etienne Joly <atn AT cict.fr>
--Apple-Mail-16-539253727 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed As a strong suporter of the evolution of scientific publishing towards=20= completely open access to all primary papers, I have spent quite some=20 time trying to think of a system that would be financially viable. For=20= those of you who are interested, the result of these thoughts is=20 summarized below, and a more complete document can be found on the=20 "Open Access Now" web server ( =20 http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/ ) For the benefit of the scientific community, completely Open Access to=20= all primary scientific articles is clearly the only way to go. But to=20 ensure the quality of the papers published, it is hard to conceive that=20= scientific publishing could be carried out by others than money-earning=20= professionals. The only viable solution is therefore for the publishing=20= charges to be levied on the authors. This is in fact very much the=20 route followed by the pioneering enterprise launched as Bio Med=20 Central. On the whole, however, authors have very understandably been=20 reluctant to publish their first rate papers in such journals because=20 of negative perceptions and upfront charges for publication. I believe, however, that it would be possible to set up a system=20 whereby papers would get evaluated for publication solely on their=20 scientific soundness, whilst the best papers would still get recognised=20= and their authors rewarded for making important contributions. For=20 example I would envisage that the amount charged for the publication of=20= their manuscript would be inversely related to the scientific impact of=20= that paper. The ground basis of this proposal is that papers would be=20 rated retroactively, and this rating would provide the authors with a=20 quotable evaluation of their publications that could be used on their=20 CVs or their grant applications. In this slightly idealistic scheme, the scientists' main concern would=20= be to produce the best science they can, and to deliver it in the best=20= and most complete format to fellow scientists, and not to seduce=20 editors and/or referees. Since acceptability would be based on=20 soundness, not on the evaluation of the interest of the results=20 described, the referee's role would be to help produce the best=20 possible articles. And because scientists would be the payers,=20 scientific publishers would have to compete with one another by=20 providing the best possible service at the best prices to the=20 scientific community. If you want to read more on how I perceive such a system could work,=20 you can find out on the following link: http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/forum/?letter=3D20030722ej Cheerio Etienne Joly ****************************************************** Etienne Joly ||||||| (pronounce A.T.N.) o o CPTP, U563 INSERM, | B=E2timent CNRS, \./ CHU Purpan,31300 Toulouse France E-mail: atn <atn AT cict.fr> Phone:(33) 561 15 84 04 Mobile :(33) 662 24 59 91 FAX: (33) 561 49 90 36 life is a beach ******************************************************= --Apple-Mail-16-539253727 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/enriched; charset=ISO-8859-1 <fontfamily><param>Verdana</param><color><param>0000,0000,0000</param> As a strong suporter of the evolution of scientific publishing towards completely open access to all primary papers, I have spent quite some time trying to think of a system that would be financially viable. For those of you who are interested, the result of these thoughts is summarized below, and a more complete document can be found on the "Open Access Now" web server (=20 http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/ )</color> For the benefit of the scientific community, completely Open Access to all primary scientific articles is clearly the only way to go. But to ensure the quality of the papers published, it is hard to conceive that scientific publishing could be carried out by others than money-earning professionals. The only viable solution is therefore for the publishing charges to be levied on the authors. This is in fact very much the route followed by the pioneering enterprise launched as Bio Med Central. On the whole, however, authors have very understandably been reluctant to publish their first rate papers in such journals because of negative perceptions and upfront charges for publication.=20 I believe, however, that it would be possible to set up a system whereby papers would get evaluated for publication solely on their scientific soundness, whilst the best papers would still get recognised and their authors rewarded for making important contributions. For example I would envisage that the amount charged for the publication of their manuscript would be inversely related to the scientific impact of that paper. The ground basis of this proposal is that papers would be rated retroactively, and this rating would provide the authors with a quotable evaluation of their publications that could be used on their CVs or their grant applications.=20 In this slightly idealistic scheme, the scientists' main concern would be to produce the best science they can, and to deliver it in the best and most complete format to fellow scientists, and not to seduce editors and/or referees. Since acceptability would be based on soundness, not on the evaluation of the interest of the results described, the referee's role would be to help produce the best possible articles. And because scientists would be the payers, scientific publishers would have to compete with one another by providing the best possible service at the best prices to the scientific community.=20 If you want to read more on how I perceive such a system could work, you can find out on the following link: http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/forum/?letter=3D20030722ej Cheerio Etienne Joly </fontfamily> <fixed><bigger>****************************************************** Etienne Joly ||||||| (pronounce A.T.N.) o o CPTP, U563 INSERM, | B=E2timent CNRS, \./ CHU Purpan,31300 Toulouse France E-mail: atn <<atn AT cict.fr> Phone:(33) 561 15 84 04 Mobile :(33) 662 24 59 91 FAX: (33) 561 49 90 36 life is a beach ******************************************************</bigger></fixed>= --Apple-Mail-16-539253727-- Re: [BOAI] A proposal for evaluating and rewarding the impact of research articlesFrom: Stevan Harnad <harnad AT ecs.soton.ac.uk>
On Wed, 3 Sep 2003, Etienne Joly wrote: > http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/forum/?letter=20030722ej > For the benefit of the scientific community, completely Open Access > to all primary scientific articles is clearly the only way to go.... > I believe... that it would be possible to set up a system > whereby papers would get evaluated for publication solely on their > scientific soundness, whilst the best papers would still get recognised > and their authors rewarded for making important contributions. For > example I would envisage that the amount charged for the publication of > their manuscript would be inversely related to the scientific impact of > that paper. The ground basis of this proposal is that papers would be > rated retroactively, and this rating would provide the authors with a > quotable evaluation of their publications that could be used on their > CVs or their grant applications. What the peer-reviewed research literature needs (urgently) today is to become freely accessible to all of its potential users worldwide, online, today. This does not call for any tampering with peer review on the basis of untested (and often very unrealistic) speculations. It only calls for free online access to the peer-reviewed research literature. The true cost of *implementing* peer review (referees referee for free), whatever that cost turns out to be, can and will be paid for in advance, by the researcher's institution or research-funder, *if and when that becomes necessary.* At the moment, it is necessary only for at most five percent (5%) -- http://www.doaj.org/ -- of the 24,000 ↵ peer-reviewed journals (3-4 million annual articles) that exist today: http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/analysis/ These 24,000 journals and their 3-4 million annual articles are what we are talking about freeing online access *to* here. http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/analysis/ For the remaining ninety-five percent (95%) of those 24,000 journals and 3-4 million annual articles, all that is needed in order to make them freely accessible online today is for their authors to continue to publish them in the journals of their choice -- as well as to self-archive them in their own institutional eprint archives. http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/harnad.html#B1 No need to implement any speculative changes whatosever in either peer review or its funding. The Invisible Hand of Peer Review. http://www.nature.com/nature/webmatters/invisible/invisible.html Peer Review Reform Hypothesis-Testing http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0479.html A Note of Caution About "Reforming the System" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1169.html Stevan Harnad NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open access to the peer-reviewed research literature online is available at the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01 & 02 ↵ & 03): http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/september98-forum.html or http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html Discussion can be posted to: september98-forum AT amsci-forum.amsci.org Re: [BOAI] A proposal for evaluating and rewarding the impact of research articlesFrom: Thomas Krichel <krichel AT openlib.org>
Etienne Joly writes > But to ensure the quality of the papers published, it is hard to > conceive that scientific publishing could be carried out by others > than money-earning professionals. The only viable solution is > therefore for the publishing charges to be levied on the authors. I beg to differ. The cost of academic publishing has dropped so far that it is easy to conceive individuals and departments running journals to raise their web exposure and academic reputation. The costs can be absorbed by the individual and the institutions. There are already many examples for this. It will be a growing trend I hope. Cheers, Thomas Krichel mailto:krichel AT openlib.org from Moscow, Russia http://openlib.org/home/krichel RePEc:per:1965-06-05:thomas_krichel RE: [BOAI] A proposal for evaluating and rewarding the impact of research articlesFrom: "Gerritsma, Wouter" <Wouter.Gerritsma AT wur.nl>
Dear Stevan, We ought to get the numbers straight. You used to quote 20,000 peer reviewed ↵ journals, based on Ulrich. Using Ulrichsweb I made a quick check (this ↵ morning), and only found 18,846 refereed active academic/scholarly serials. I ↵ can't see why you increased your quote on the number of serials to 24,000 ↵ today, the FAQ your refered to comes with other figures altogether: Q What does the "Ulrich's Core" consist of? A The "Ulrich's Core" consists of approximately 50,000 active titles ↵ that represent academic and scholarly journals, refereed serials, titles ↵ reviewed in Katz's Magazines for Libraries, and major consumer and trade ↵ publications. http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/analysis/ It is hard to believe that the major consumer and trade publications consist of ↵ more than half of "Ulrich's core" So how many peer reviewed scholarly publication's are out there? Is it an important question we have to ask ourselves anyway? I think it is good ↵ to have a yardstick on which we can measure the progress of adopting the open ↵ access model. Your sincerely Wouter Gerritsma ----------------------------------------- Wouter Gerritsma Information Specialist Plant Library Wageningen UR Library e-mail: wouter.gerritsma AT wur.nl ----------------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: Stevan Harnad [mailto:harnad AT ecs.soton.ac.uk] Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 22:34 To: BOAI Forum Subject: Re: [BOAI] A proposal for evaluating and rewarding the impact of research articles On Wed, 3 Sep 2003, Etienne Joly wrote: > http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/forum/?letter=20030722ej > For the benefit of the scientific community, completely Open Access > to all primary scientific articles is clearly the only way to go.... > I believe... that it would be possible to set up a system > whereby papers would get evaluated for publication solely on their > scientific soundness, whilst the best papers would still get recognised > and their authors rewarded for making important contributions. For > example I would envisage that the amount charged for the publication of > their manuscript would be inversely related to the scientific impact of > that paper. The ground basis of this proposal is that papers would be > rated retroactively, and this rating would provide the authors with a > quotable evaluation of their publications that could be used on their > CVs or their grant applications. What the peer-reviewed research literature needs (urgently) today is to become freely accessible to all of its potential users worldwide, online, today. This does not call for any tampering with peer review on the basis of untested (and often very unrealistic) speculations. It only calls for free online access to the peer-reviewed research literature. The true cost of *implementing* peer review (referees referee for free), whatever that cost turns out to be, can and will be paid for in advance, by the researcher's institution or research-funder, *if and when that becomes necessary.* At the moment, it is necessary only for at most five percent (5%) -- http://www.doaj.org/ -- of the 24,000 ↵ peer-reviewed journals (3-4 million annual articles) that exist today: http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/analysis/ These 24,000 journals and their 3-4 million annual articles are what we are talking about freeing online access *to* here. http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/analysis/ For the remaining ninety-five percent (95%) of those 24,000 journals and 3-4 million annual articles, all that is needed in order to make them freely accessible online today is for their authors to continue to publish them in the journals of their choice -- as well as to self-archive them in their own institutional eprint archives. http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/harnad.html#B1 No need to implement any speculative changes whatosever in either peer review or its funding. The Invisible Hand of Peer Review. http://www.nature.com/nature/webmatters/invisible/invisible.html Peer Review Reform Hypothesis-Testing http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0479.html A Note of Caution About "Reforming the System" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1169.html Stevan Harnad NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open access to the peer-reviewed research literature online is available at the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01 & 02 ↵ & 03): http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/september98-forum.html or http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html Discussion can be posted to: september98-forum AT amsci-forum.amsci.org [BOAI] Re: Request for journal/article/field statistics from Ulrichs and ISIFrom: Stevan Harnad <harnad AT ecs.soton.ac.uk>
> On Thu, 4 Sep 2003, Gerritsma, Wouter wrote: > We ought to get the numbers straight. You used to quote 20,000 peer > reviewed journals, based on Ulrich. Correct. That was the (rounded-off) figure I was given by Ulrich's a few years ago. The new (exact) figure from Ulrich's is 24,116 (see reply from Yvette Diven, below). I again rounded it off: 24,000 http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/analysis/ > Using Ulrichsweb I made a quick check > (this morning), and only found 18,846 refereed active academic/scholarly > serials. I can't see why you increased your quote on the number of > serials to 24,000 today, the FAQ you refered to comes with other > figures altogether: There seem to be several different ways of estimating total refereed journals in Ulrichs. Web queries give one outcome; a direct query to Ulrich's another. (Perhaps Yvette can clarify?) > Q What does the "Ulrich's Core" consist of? > A The "Ulrich's Core" consists of approximately 50,000 active ↵ titles > that represent academic and scholarly journals, refereed serials, > titles reviewed in Katz's Magazines for Libraries, and major consumer > and trade publications. http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/analysis/ I don't know about "Ulrich's Core" but I think Ulrich's total serials coverage is closer to 200,000. A recent reply from Gene Garfield, by the way, refers to total of about 15,000 refereed *scientific* journals worldwide, of which ISI indexes about half (the core?). GARFIELD: "The key to all this is a proper definition of a journal and it varies all over the lot. I think 15,000 scientific journals is good enough. ISI covers half of these which means that they are covering about 75% of the... probably 1.5 million [articles published] worldwide" Garfield also uses 100 articles as his rounded-off estimate of the average number of articles per journal (ISI's current exact figure is about 107, and higher for science than for non-science). That would mean, roughly, 24,000 x 100 = about 2.5 million refereed articles annually (again rounding off for simplicity). > It is hard to believe that the major consumer and trade publications > consist of more than half of "Ulrich's core" I can't follow any of that. I am interested only in estimating the total number of refereed journals, both scientific and scholarly. > So how many peer reviewed scholarly publications are out there? Somewhere in the vicinity of 24K still sounds right, and about 2.5 million articles annually. The purpose of soliciting these data was in order to estimate what proportion of the annual 2.5 million refereed-journal articles is open-access because it appears in open-access journals, what proportion is open-access because it is self-archived by its authors, and how quickly open-access is growing via these two complementary routes: There are 500 (low-end estimate -- http://www.doaj.org/ ) to 1000 (high-end estimate) open-access journals (i.e., 50,000 to 100,000 articles), so that means at most 5% of the annual refereed literature of 2.5 million. For self-archiving, Kat Hagedorn has replied that OAIster's count for their 2002-dated self-archived full-texts is already 115,000 (indexing nearly 200 OAI archives) http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/viewcolls.html But this is really only the tip of the iceberg: OAIster does not include all OAI archives, and even all OAI archives would not include the much vaster quantity of research full-texts that are self-archived on authors' ordinary websites rather than in OAI archives. (Citeseer http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/cs alone harvests at least 50,000 per year in computer science alone.) (On the other hand, for our purposes, the OAIster figure does include some double-counts because it also harvests some of the open-access journals, and Kat Hagedorn replied that she still has no way of getting separate counts for journal archives vs institutional archives.) I am still drawing together the data received in response to my query, so as to estimate the absolute and relative growth rate for the two complementary sources of open-access articles (open-access publishing and open-access self-archiving). The two are, even on the most conservative estimates, about neck-and-neck at 5% each, but the crucial difference is that open access through open-access publishing is also at ceiling at 5% -- its counts can only be increased if more of the 23,000 non-OA journals convert to OA or more new OA journals are founded and capture the 23,000 non-OA journals' authorships, giving authors more open-access journals to publish in. The rates at which that is taking place can be extrapolated too, but they are bound to be slow, because journals are not easy to found, fill or convert. In contrast, open-access through self-archiving is nowhere near its ceiling -- which, even on the most conservative estimate is at least at 55% currently (and actually much higher) http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo/Romeo%20Publisher%20Policies.htm My guess is that it will be much easier and faster to convince the research community and its institutions to self-archive than to found, convert or fill new OA journals. That is why I am trying to correct the disproportionate hopes that are currently being placed on the 5% solution (open-access publishing) while missing the potential of the complementary 55%-95% solution (open-access self-archiving). > Is it an important question we have to ask ourselves anyway? I think > it is good to have a yardstick on which we can measure the progress of > adopting the open access model. It is indeed an important question and yardstick. Now let us compile and examine the comparative time-series data and projections that result! Stevan Harnad -------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 12:15:01 -0400 From: "Diven, Yvette" <yvette.diven AT bowker.com> To: Stevan Harnad <harnad AT ecs.soton.ac.uk> Dear Professor Harnad, My apologies for the delay in getting this information to you. Following are active-status refereed serial counts from ulrichsweb.com as of Thursday, August 28. (The ulrichsweb.com data is updated weekly with all of the past week's new and changed records.) The numbers for refereed serials include refereed conference proceedings as well as refereed journals. The subject headings listed below are the top-level Ulrich's headings, and the counts for each include the counts for all of the sub-classifications within those headings. So, for example, "Biology" includes "Biology (General)", "Biology - ↵ Biochemistry", "Biology - Bioengineering", "Biology - Microbiology", etc. I hope that this information is useful to you in your Open Access Journals research. As Director of Product Development for Serials at Bowker, I would be thrilled if you could mention in your posted results and analysis that the numbers are from Ulrich's. We are focused on making Ulrich's a stronger database to aid serials research, and knowing that Ulrich's is helping to contribute to a better understanding of the changing serials environment is gratifying. We welcome your comments and suggestions as to the types of additional serials data that you as a researcher would like to see in Ulrich's. Please feel free to contact me at any time. Kind Regards, - Yvette COUNTS OF ACTIVE-STATUS REFEREED SERIALS FROM ULRICH'S TOTAL ALL (900+) ULRICH'S SUBJECTS: 24,116 BIOLOGY -- 2,373 CHEMISTRY -- 708 COMPUTERS -- 636 EARTH SCIENCES -- 713 GERONTOLOGY AND GERIATRICS -- 113 LINGUISTICS -- 640 MATHEMATICS -- 776 MEDICAL SCIENCES -- 4,313 PHARMACY AND PHARMACOLOGY -- 438 PHYSICS -- 660 Yvette Diven Director, Product Management, Serials R.R. Bowker LLC 630 Central Avenue New Providence, NJ 07974 Local Office Phone: 415.861.3080 Email: Web: www.ulrichsweb.com [BOAI] Re: Request for journal/article/field statistics from Ulrichs and ISIFrom: Stevan Harnad <harnad AT ecs.soton.ac.uk>
[Forwarding reply from Yvette Diven of Bowker's: 24,000 is
apparently the total number of peer-reviewed journals covered (as
determined by Ulrich's/Bowker criteria that are not described here)
and 18,000 is apparently the number that are self-decsribed by the
publisher as "academic/scholarly". (One wonders what might be the
subject matter of the 6,000 peer-reviewed journals that are *not*
self-designated as academic/scholarly: Possibly pure and applied
research?) -- SH]
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 12:46:43 -0400
From: "Diven, Yvette" <yvette.diven AT bowker.com>
To: "Stevan Harnad" <harnad AT ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Request for journal/article/field statistics from Ulrichs and ISI
Professor Harnad,
In reading through the string of emails, I think I can clarify the
issue of differing counts from Ulrich's. It appears that the counts
are being derived in different ways, using different search criteria in
ulrichsweb.com (www.ulrichsweb.com), and that information intended for
users of Ulrich's Serials Analysis System (www.ulrichsweb.com/analysis)
is being used to define content in ulrichsweb.com. Ulrich's, the database,
supports both products and the underlying content and counts in both
products are from Ulrich's.
Ulrichsweb.com is designed to be a library staff/patron/faculty
interface product. Ulrichsweb.com contains bibliographic information
on approximately 250,000 periodicals -- active, forthcoming, suspended,
and ceased. There are approximately 175,000 active status periodicals
in Ulrich's -- including journals, magazines, newspapers, bulletins,
monographic series, and newsletters. If one searches ulrichsweb.com
for active-status refereed publications of all types, the search
result is 24,165 (today's total reflecting the last weekly update of
ulrichsweb.com). A search on active-status refereed ↵
"academic/scholarly"
publications yields a total of 18,788 publications. The designation of
"academic/scholarly" is assigned to a periodical by its publisher, ↵
based
on a list of designations in use in Ulrich's. There is another small
group of 58 records flagged in the Ulrich's database as active that
are currently being researched for address confirmation. I believe it
is those 58 records that constitute the difference between the "18,846
refereed active academic/scholarly serials" referenced in an email in
the string below and the search I have just run this morning.
The "FAQ" that is mentioned is the list of frequently asked questions
about Ulrich's Serials Analysis System. That product is designed to
be a collection evaluation tool for library professionals - it is not
a patron-access interface product like ulrichsweb.com. The "Ulrich's
Universe" and "Ulrich's Core" defined in the FAQ refer to the ↵
baselines
of comparative measurement that Ulrich's Serials Analysis System makes
available. Libraries use Ulrich's Serials Analysis System to compare
their library's holdings against (1) all active-status titles in the
Ulrich's database and/or (2) a selected subset of approximately 50,000
"core" titles that includes academic/scholarly titles, refereed ↵
titles,
major consumer and trade titles, and recommended titles. The Ulrich's
Core, as it is used in Ulrich's Serials Analysis System includes the
41,000+ active-status academic/scholarly titles pulled from Ulrich's;
that total includes refereed academic/scholarly titles, but does not
consists wholly of refereed titles.
I hope that this information helps clarify the counts. If there are
other questions, please let me know.
Kind Regards,
- Yvette
Yvette Diven
Director, Product Management, Serials
R.R. Bowker LLC
630 Central Avenue
New Providence, NJ 07974
Local Office Phone: 415.861.3080
Email: yvette.diven AT bowker.com
Web: www.ulrichsweb.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Stevan Harnad [mailto:harnad AT ecs.soton.ac.uk]
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 7:00 AM
To: BOAI Forum
Subject: Re: Request for journal/article/field statistics from Ulrichs
and ISI
> On Thu, 4 Sep 2003, Gerritsma, Wouter wrote:
> We ought to get the numbers straight. You used to quote 20,000 peer
> reviewed journals, based on Ulrich.
Correct. That was the (rounded-off) figure I was given by Ulrich's a few
years ago. The new (exact) figure from Ulrich's is 24,116 (see reply from
Yvette Diven, below). I again rounded it off: 24,000
http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/analysis/
> Using Ulrichsweb I made a quick check
> (this morning), and only found 18,846 refereed active academic/scholarly
> serials. I can't see why you increased your quote on the number of
> serials to 24,000 today, the FAQ you refered to comes with other
> figures altogether:
There seem to be several different ways of estimating total refereed
journals in Ulrichs. Web queries give one outcome; a direct query to
Ulrich's another. (Perhaps Yvette can clarify?)
> Q What does the "Ulrich's Core" consist of?
> A The "Ulrich's Core" consists of approximately 50,000 active ↵
titles
> that represent academic and scholarly journals, refereed serials,
> titles reviewed in Katz's Magazines for Libraries, and major consumer
> and trade publications. http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/analysis/
I don't know about "Ulrich's Core" but I think Ulrich's total serials
coverage is closer to 200,000.
A recent reply from Gene Garfield, by the way, refers to
total of about 15,000 refereed *scientific* journals worldwide, of which
ISI indexes about half (the core?).
GARFIELD:
"The key to all this is a proper definition of a journal and it
varies all over the lot. I think 15,000 scientific journals is good
enough. ISI covers half of these which means that they are covering
about 75% of the... probably 1.5 million [articles published]
worldwide"
Garfield also uses 100 articles as his rounded-off estimate of the
average number of articles per journal (ISI's current exact figure
is about 107, and higher for science than for non-science).
That would mean, roughly, 24,000 x 100 = about 2.5 million refereed
articles annually (again rounding off for simplicity).
> It is hard to believe that the major consumer and trade publications
> consist of more than half of "Ulrich's core"
I can't follow any of that. I am interested only in estimating the
total number of refereed journals, both scientific and scholarly.
> So how many peer reviewed scholarly publications are out there?
Somewhere in the vicinity of 24K still sounds right, and about 2.5
million articles annually.
The purpose of soliciting these data was in order to estimate what
proportion of the annual 2.5 million refereed-journal articles is
open-access because it appears in open-access journals, what proportion is
open-access because it is self-archived by its authors, and how quickly
open-access is growing via these two complementary routes:
There are 500 (low-end estimate -- http://www.doaj.org/ ) to 1000
(high-end estimate) open-access journals (i.e., 50,000 to 100,000
articles), so that means at most 5% of the annual refereed literature
of 2.5 million.
For self-archiving, Kat Hagedorn has replied that OAIster's
count for their 2002-dated self-archived full-texts
is already 115,000 (indexing nearly 200 OAI archives)
http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/viewcolls.html
But this is really only the tip of the iceberg: OAIster does not include
all OAI archives, and even all OAI archives would not include the
much vaster quantity of research full-texts that are self-archived
on authors' ordinary websites rather than in OAI archives. (Citeseer
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/cs alone harvests at least 50,000 per year
in computer science alone.)
(On the other hand, for our purposes, the OAIster figure does include some
double-counts because it also harvests some of the open-access journals,
and Kat Hagedorn replied that she still has no way of getting separate
counts for journal archives vs institutional archives.)
I am still drawing together the data received in response to my query,
so as to estimate the absolute and relative growth rate for the two
complementary sources of open-access articles (open-access publishing and
open-access self-archiving). The two are, even on the most conservative
estimates, about neck-and-neck at 5% each, but the crucial difference is
that open access through open-access publishing is also at ceiling at 5%
-- its counts can only be increased if more of the 23,000 non-OA journals
convert to OA or more new OA journals are founded and capture the 23,000
non-OA journals' authorships, giving authors more open-access journals to
publish in. The rates at which that is taking place can be extrapolated
too, but they are bound to be slow, because journals are not easy to
found, fill or convert.
In contrast, open-access through self-archiving is nowhere
near its ceiling -- which, even on the most conservative
estimate is at least at 55% currently (and actually much higher)
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo/Romeo%20Publisher%20Policies.htm
My guess is that it will be much easier and faster to convince the
research community and its institutions to self-archive than to found,
convert or fill new OA journals. That is why I am trying to correct the
disproportionate hopes that are currently being placed on the 5% solution
(open-access publishing) while missing the potential of the
complementary 55%-95% solution (open-access self-archiving).
> Is it an important question we have to ask ourselves anyway? I think
> it is good to have a yardstick on which we can measure the progress of
> adopting the open access model.
It is indeed an important question and yardstick. Now let us compile and
examine the comparative time-series data and projections that result!
Stevan Harnad
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 12:15:01 -0400
From: "Diven, Yvette" <yvette.diven AT bowker.com>
To: Stevan Harnad <harnad AT ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Dear Professor Harnad,
My apologies for the delay in getting this information to you.
Following are active-status refereed serial counts from ulrichsweb.com
as of Thursday, August 28. (The ulrichsweb.com data is updated weekly
with all of the past week's new and changed records.) The numbers for
refereed serials include refereed conference proceedings as well as
refereed journals. The subject headings listed below are the top-level
Ulrich's headings, and the counts for each include the counts for all
of the sub-classifications within those headings. So, for example,
"Biology" includes "Biology (General)", "Biology - ↵
Biochemistry",
"Biology - Bioengineering", "Biology - Microbiology", etc.
I hope that this information is useful to you in your Open Access Journals
research. As Director of Product Development for Serials at Bowker, I
would be thrilled if you could mention in your posted results and analysis
that the numbers are from Ulrich's. We are focused on making Ulrich's a
stronger database to aid serials research, and knowing that Ulrich's is
helping to contribute to a better understanding of the changing serials
environment is gratifying. We welcome your comments and suggestions as
to the types of additional serials data that you as a researcher would
like to see in Ulrich's. Please feel free to contact me at any time.
Kind Regards,
- Yvette
COUNTS OF ACTIVE-STATUS REFEREED SERIALS FROM ULRICH'S
TOTAL ALL (900+) ULRICH'S SUBJECTS: 24,116
BIOLOGY -- 2,373
CHEMISTRY -- 708
COMPUTERS -- 636
EARTH SCIENCES -- 713
GERONTOLOGY AND GERIATRICS -- 113
LINGUISTICS -- 640
MATHEMATICS -- 776
MEDICAL SCIENCES -- 4,313
PHARMACY AND PHARMACOLOGY -- 438
PHYSICS -- 660
Yvette Diven
Director, Product Management, Serials
R.R. Bowker LLC
630 Central Avenue
New Providence, NJ 07974
Local Office Phone: 415.861.3080
Email:
Web: www.ulrichsweb.com
[BOAI] Re: Request for journal/article/field statistics from Ulrichs and ISIFrom: Stevan Harnad <harnad AT ecs.soton.ac.uk>
[Further corrobrative data from Carol Tenopir that Ulrich's
covers 24K peer-reviewed journals, of which 18K are
self-described as "sholarly/academic." Still a mystery what
fields the other 6,000 peer-reviewed journals are in. -- SH]
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 14:56:34 -0400
From: ctenopir <ctenopir AT utk.edu>
To: harnad AT coglit.soton.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Request for journal/article/field statistics from Ulrichs and ISI
Stevan, You are right that the exact number of journals depends on the
search strategy, version of Ulrich's used (and even Ulrich's indexing
policies). To avoid the problem of spurious accuracy is why I now always
do as you do and round the number off. I check this every 6 months or so
(last time for part of the strategies was a few weeks ago). Attached are
the Feb. 2003 and Oct. 2003 counts from ulrichsweb with the stategies
given (there are many ways to slice this cake.) Carol
Carol Tenopir, Professor
School of Information Sciences and
Interim Director, Center for Information Studies
University of Tennessee
1345 Circle Park Drive, 451 Communications Bldg.
Knoxville, TN 37996-0341
(865) 974-7911 FAX (865) 974-4967
web.utk.edu/~tenopir/
Searches of ulrichsweb.com, Feb 12, 2003 Aug 21, 2003
Carol Tenopir
Requested searches
1. Limited to academic/scholarly periodicals 43677
2. Limited to active academic/scholarly periodicals 39565 41,232
3. Limited to academic/scholarly refereed periodicals 18675
4. Limited to active academic/scholarly refereed periodicals 17649
5. Limited to academic/scholarly online periodicals 15199
6. Limited to active academic/scholarly online periodicals 14647 15,481
7. Limited to refereed periodicals 25367 26,557
8. Refereed andnot academic/scholarly 6692
Other searches of potential interest
1. Limited to active periodicals (of all types) 175,639
2. Limited to active refereed periodicals (of all types) 23231
3. Limited to active online periodicals (of all types) 33393
4. Limited to active online refereed periodicals (all types) 12575
5. Limited to active online refereed academic/scholarly periodicals 10968
6. Keyword search scien* OR techn* OR medic*
Limited to active online refereed academic/scholarly periodicals 8977
7. Keyword search scien* OR techn* OR medic* 13009
Limited to active refereed academic/scholarly periodicals
8. Keyword search scien* OR techn* OR medic* OR soci*
Limited to active refereed academic/scholarly periodicals 14240
9. Subject search scien* OR techn* OR medic*
Limited to active refereed academic/scholarly periodicals 3840
10. Subject search scien* OR techn* OR medic*
Limited to active refereed academic/scholarly periodicals 5699
11. Subject search scien* OR techn* OR medic* OR soci*
Limited to active refereed academic/scholarly periodicals 6145
12. Subject search scien* OR techn* OR medic* OR soci*
Limited to active refereed online academic/scholarly periodicals 5076
12 but active online academic/scholarly 11825
Definitions from the Ulrich's online glossary:
Active: A publication status that indicates that a title is currently
being published.
Refereed: Otherwise known as peer-review. Refers to the system of
critical evaluation of manuscripts/articles by professional colleagues
or peers. The content of refereed publications is sanctioned, vetted, or
otherwise approved by a peer-review or editorial board. The peer-review
and evaluation system is utilized to protect, maintain, and raise the
quality of scholarly material published in serials. Publications subject
to the referee process are assumed, then, to contain higher quality
content than those that aren't.
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